


Upon This Charge

by SylvanWitch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-12
Updated: 2012-05-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 04:59:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem, as Dean sees it, is this.  Episode coda for 7:22.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Upon This Charge

It’s strange how he can miss something he hadn’t even gotten used to yet, but there it is.  Dean’s attention is only half on the road; the other half of the time he spends shooting glances in the rearview mirror.

 

For all the times Bobby’s sudden appearance there almost made him wreck their, well, _wreck_ , Dean misses the possibility of being scared skinless.

 

“This sucks,” he observes to no one in particular.  Sam’s half asleep beside him and hasn’t responded to a thing Dean’s said in half an hour at least.

 

Dean’s no fool, and despite his drinking, he’s not so far gone he doesn’t remember his lessons.  As every Saturday afternoon movie he watched on crappy motel TVs from eight to eighteen taught him, the hero has to lose everything before he can win what he most wants.

  
The problem, as Dean sees it, is this:

 

One, he’s no hero.  Sam neither.  Maybe once, a long time ago, before their respective stints down under, but now?  No.  Righteousness went the way of his last tortured scream, and Sam hadn’t exactly been playing the saint either.

 

Two, Dean’s not sure he’s all that invested in saving the world this time around.  Okay, yeah, he talks a good game, and sure, he saved that kid from Daddy Dearest, but Dean’s got some issues with having to take on the world’s next-oldest evil when he and his family have already given up everything to eradicate the Oldest himself.

 

Look where that effort got them:  The loony-bin for Sam.  A beautiful, temporary lie for Dean.

 

So, yeah, Dean’s got some issues with the likelihood of dying—again—for a world that will fail to recognize its peril—again—and probably cost him whatever he’s got left in the bargain.

 

Then again, living isn’t much fun either, he considers, staring balefully at the radishes scattered across the torn vinyl of their most recently liberated piece of shit.  The radio gets one station—Christian rock—and there’s a cassette jammed in the player— _Best of Creed_. 

 

If Dean hadn’t already been to hell, he’d be pretty sure he was there now.

 

Beside him, Sam stirs, mumbles something incoherent, turns his face to the window, and snuffles back down into sleep.

 

Sparing a glance for the snail trail of drool purling down his brother’s chin, Dean thinks about snapping a picture with his phone.  It’s lame as pranks go, but he’s got to take his joy where he can find it.  Then Sam’s lips curl up in a dopey smile, and Dean abandons his plan.

 

If Sam, folded uncomfortably in the front seat of a drafty clunker that stinks of gasoline and stale grease, can find something in the bowels of cold sleep to smile about, there’s got to be a reason to keep going.

 

As hope goes, it’s pretty slim, but they’ve run on less and gotten more miles out of it before this. 

 

Dean turns on the stereo and presses “play,” and to the opening strains of _My Sacrifice_ he borrows a ghost of a smile from Sam. 

 

No, he’s not fool enough or drunk enough to have any real faith that the world is going to let things work out in the Winchesters’ favor, but hell, why should the world change now?

 

One thing hasn’t changed, and it’s this right here:  one road, two brothers, and whatever they’ve got left to give away.

 

 


End file.
